Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Need Money? Don't We All...

I've heard the logic and the rational from lots of people, including some I've worked with in the not so distant past. They need a few dollars to hold them over until the next payday, so they take out payday loans from time to time to get them through.

Say you need $100 before your next pay check comes through. The local store front loan spots will give it to you under the right circumstances - for a fee of $20 if you pay it back by your next payday. Of course, paying it back can, in itself, create a cash crunch; so if you need more time they'll let you take another two weeks if you increase the fee for the loan by another twenty bucks...

If you want to think of the loan as a service that got you out of a really tight spot, and if you want to think of the $20 as just $20, the loan seems like a reasonable service. But if you ever do the math a figure out the interest rate - something like 500% a year - the loans start to seem less reasonable, maybe even immoral.

My state was considering regulating the industry and putting a cap on the annual interest rate they could charge.

The solution to that, form a business perspective? The Internet. And so you get companies like TrustSource Cash Advance offering access to the "service" online.

As such services go, TrustSource Cash Advance looks to be among the better ones. Their site offers access to a range of loan products, all at unholy annual interest rates designed to get you out of that once in a life time tight spot. The problem, of course, arises when people become addicted to the service - a service they need because they're so bad with money to start with that they can't get a normal credit card to use for these situations.

If you just have to have the money and you can't get a loan from your Uncle Bob or your best friend, TrustSource Cash Advance is there. But you should think twice before you use a service like this...

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I was financially compensated for this post...

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